Abstract

This chapter argues that there is a variety of secular and conscious strategies for re-enchantment, held together by a common aim of filling a God-shaped void. The discussion also introduces three approaches to affirm the claim and offer a more nuanced understanding of the nature of modernity. The first is to reject the notion that any lingering enchantment within Western culture must of necessity be a relic (the binary approach). The second is to reject the notion that modernity is itself enchanted, unbeknown to its subjects, in a deceptive and dangerous way (the dialectical approach). It is to accept, instead, the fact that modernity embraces seeming contraries, such as rationality and wonder, secularism and faith (antinomial). The third type of enchantment is the modern enchantment par excellence: one which simultaneously enchants and disenchants.